


yesterday i died (tomorrow's waiting)

by vinndetta



Category: A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, Game Grumps
Genre: Angst, Arin's a Sad Boy and we all love him v much, F/M, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, References to Depression, Sad with a Happy Ending, anyway, christmas carol au, its not REALLY a christmas carol in any sense but like? its kind of related?, right? you fckn better, so i did try, this is ??? i did some research for this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 06:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16949067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinndetta/pseuds/vinndetta
Summary: "What is this, the fucking Christmas Carol, or what?"The figure paused. "I mean... if you want to put it that way... then yeah. Sure."orIt's 2006, and nineteen-year-old Arin Hanson has lost all hope in life.





	yesterday i died (tomorrow's waiting)

**Author's Note:**

> title credits:  
> shattered  
> by trading yesterday
> 
> don't @ me or anything  
> i don't know why i wrote this but i think its great  
> anyway i hope you enjoy muah  
> if you're feeling down, then please, please, reach out! if you're feeling down in the dumps like arin, please find help! therapy isn't shameful, and asking for help will be worth it in the end, trust me

Sunlight streamed through the blinds, coming in through the open window. Arin blinked, staring up groggily at the ceiling. He rubbed at his eyes and sat up. The sheets on the pull-out couch were a mess near the foot of the bed, and there's a mess of papers all over the floor. It wasn't exactly the best place, or the cleanest, but it was home. It was what he had. It was all he had.

The moment he woke up, he knew that there was something off. Something felt wrong, and it's like all those days that he could immediately tell was going to be a bad day before anything even remotely terrible happened. He wasn't sure if it was really going to be a bad day, but you could never be sure. It just felt like something big was going to happen, whether it be good or bad. Probably the latter, he thought to himself. His brain told him to be prepared, but now, he didn't even want to leave his room. Nothing could touch him if he just stayed in his bed all day.

Arin's mind drifted towards his work. His drawings, his animations, everything that he was trying to do, was on the desk just a couple feet away from the bed. What was he doing this for? Why was he being drained creatively regarding the thing that he's always wanted to do? Why is he struggling so bad, living on his friend's couch? 

Everything just felt so bad.

It's really easy for the voices in your head to mingle with society's expectations, whether it's something like _maybe I should have finished high school and gone to college and done shit with my life_ to _god why does anyone hang with me why was I so naive to think anyone could ever care about me._

Needless to say, it's easy for Arin to slip back into that head-space, that void. What more he could he do? His friends were nice, letting him trade off between sleeping on their couches. But he knew that it was strained in some way, because there's always that point where you don't want to do any more nice things for your friend without payback.

That's the reason why he tried to get a job, and do some animation things on the side. He didn't like his jobs, and it was quickly becoming obvious that he didn't like doing animations for fun anymore. Everything was about what he had to do, to put on Newgrounds and YouTube, and everyone expected more, more, more. There was no break, nothing that could satisfy him at that point. There was too much work to do to keep his fans, and the payoff was essentially nonexistent. Every time he got out an animation, the responses were only ranging from the fact that they wanted more or the fact that they thought this could have come out sooner. Nothing he did could satisfy them, and nothing he did, therefore, would be able to satisfy himself.

Arin laid back down on his bed, ultimately feeling down in the dumps. That feeling he had when he woke up, it was just him knowing that his own thoughts would cause his own downfall. He hadn't exactly been happy this entire time, but everything seemed to get so bad, so bleak all of a sudden.

Suzanne...

Arin loved her. He loved her so much. He had honestly thought that she was the love of his life, his soulmate, his everything. So when she said she wanted to take a break, his heart basically shattered. They'd been dating for almost six years, and he was seriously considering spending the rest of his life with her. She was so beautiful and amazing, and he wasn't sure how he was able to get a girl like her to love him.

But now she was gone. And all those letters that he had sent her every day since? He's never gotten a response, or any sort of acknowledgement of those words that he spills out to her every day. It's the letters that he starts with, " _My dearest, the lovely Suzy,_ " and ends with, " _I love you so much, more than anything in the world. Forever yours, Arin Hanson._ " The letters that he folds neatly, and sends out in a beautiful envelope. His life may be a dirty mess, and his place is a wreck, but his letters were always pristine and clean. 

Nothing hurts more than knowing that you've lost someone who meant so much to you. Arin feels as if he's lost a part of himself the minute that Suzy decided to up and leave. They're still kind of friends, but every time they talk, he has to try to keep his heart from cracking even more than it already has. The first couple of weeks, it was just a never-ending stream of tears. And now, it feels as if everything is hollow. How do you deal with the fact that your soulmate, the woman that you think you could love until the end of time, breaks it off with you? It's been nearly a year, and he doesn't know what he could do at this point. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to stop loving her. And if she's no longer in love with him, then he's screwed over for eternity, forever doomed to love a girl who stole his heart at fifteen.

Creak.

Arin shot up in the bed, quickly looking around to see what made that noise.

"Ow, ow, ow. Dammit. Did not mean to hit my knee on that." 

That voice is not familiar, and Arin panics. Was he about to be robbed by an amateur robber? This is not what he wanted to wake up to. Maybe this was the bad thing that was going to happen. He quickly grabs a shirt as he moves to get out of the bed, not wanting to brave someone in the cool autumn air while only in boxers. It's a large plain white shirt that goes to the middle of his thighs in length, so it was relatively decent.

He walked slowly around the bed, looking around for the source of the mysterious voice. He reaches out to grab a baseball bat that's in the corner of the room. There weren't any more noises, and Arin started to doubt if there was even a person there at all. Maybe he had imagined it in his dream-like, delirious state.

Creak.

Okay, that was definitely not imagined. Arin stepped forward towards the kitchen. He crept along the wall, raising his bat in preparation. Although he had a bat for protection, he was still shaking a bit, and his arms felt weak.

Suddenly, he popped out in front of the doorway to the kitchen to see a figure standing in front of him. He raised up his bat and almost swung forward immediately.

"Woah, woah! Don't! I'm not corporeal, but things still fucking hurt!"

Arin tilted his head, slowly lowering the bat. Maybe he was right after all when he said that there probably wasn't even a person there at all. The figure in front of him was literally blurred lines, with a fuzzy light-grayish color. They looked like a person, but colorless, somehow. They looked so real, yet so unreal at the same time. They were sort of see-through, but not a lot. They had backed away in worry and fear, lifting up their hands in mercy. Arin didn't see anything worrisome about the person despite the fact that they were an intruder.

"Jeez, okay, man. Sorry, didn't mean to creep you out."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Ah." The person smiled nervously. "The name's Jordan. Nice to meet you, Arin."

"How do you know my name?"

Jordan tilted their head. "Silly, I know everything about you." Arin made a face, and Jordan looked away. "Shit, didn't mean to sound like a creeper. I just happen to be a... what do you call it? Spirit? Guardian angel? Something like that."

Arin furrowed his eyebrows. "You don't even know what you are?"

Jordan snorted, shrugging. "I don't know how to translate it to any known human language, let alone English."

Arin blinked. He didn't expect this. Usually, his dreams aren't something like this. And if this was real, then, well... fuck. That's weird. He hadn't recalled any supernatural experiences, whether he experienced himself or his roommate said anything remotely similar. He slowly put down the bat. This person looked very spirit-like, which probably meant that even if they were coming to end his life or something, a measly bat wasn't going to be able to do much for him anyway.

"So, uh." Jordan continued. "You're probably wondering what I'm doing here."

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock." Arin let out a pity smile. "Not to be rude, but I'm not entirely feeling great about some weird spirit coming into my residence and talking to me."

"Well, I'll get down to it, since you seem like a 'I-take-no-bullshit' person. I'm here to take you on a journey."

"What, to hell?" Arin smirked a little.

Jordan blinked, and Arin gulped. "Uh, it was a joke?"

The spirit let out a small laugh. "Ah, right. Sorry, I wasn't prepared to answer something like that." They scratched their head.

"So, uh, what's this journey for?" Arin started to feel intrigued by this. He didn't expect this, but the spirit seemed to be really nice. Despite his better judgement, he did trust this person that he just met literally three minutes ago. They didn't seem to want to do harm to him.

"To your past, to the present, and to the future! Pretty classic stuff that I have to do for your case." Jordan smiled widely.

Arin blinked in confusion. "First off, case? This is a case?" Arin frowned a bit. This was starting to sound really familiar, in more ways than one. This case business sounded as if he was in a file in the spirit-world and he was being assigned someone, like detective work or something.

"Yeah, your case. And I'm your personal... spirit-thingy."

"Just say spirit."

"Got it, Arin."

"Secondly, past, present, future?"

"Yeah," Jordan threw up their hands in meek acceptance. "I know, I know, kind of a cliche."

"What is this, the fucking Christmas Carol, or what?"

The figure paused. "I mean... if you want to put it that way... then yeah. Sure."

Arin's mouth dropped. What was this? Was he trapped in some sort of story or something? This is the kind of thing that would only happen in fantasy stories, not in real life! And this was a real thing? What kind of prank was this? Was this the inspiration for the Christmas Carol? That was just a story; no one thinks that ghosts and spirits are real. And besides, Christmas isn't even in a few months anyway.

"Uhm... not to bother you from your train of thought, sure it's really interesting and all, but we're on a tight schedule."

Arin looked back up at Jordan. He had just woken up, and he already had to go time-travelling? "Shit, uh, we gotta go now?"

Jordan's lips tightened into a line. "Well, we can wait, but then, it'd be harder to travel between times. Right now, it's a pretty good time to go between eras and places. The time is ripe. The stars are aligned. It's perfect timing."

"Ugh. Don't start explaining all that... stuff." Arin groaned. "You sound like a high school physics teacher."

Jordan just laughed. "Don't worry, I don't know the specifics anyway. We were taught them during training, but I certainly can't remember all the science behind everything."

Arin looked around. This place... He took in everything, just in case this was a trick and he was going to die. Either way, it was going to be a while until he saw this place again.

"Don't miss this place. We'll be back here soon, and no time will have passed."

Jordan grabbed onto Arin's arms, who tensed up. God, this was really happening. He was going somewhere with some person he had just met, and he wasn't sure how this was going to end up. He ended up having a depressive episode and an existential crisis this morning, and then suddenly this happens. God, what a wild ride.

"Close your eyes. Well, it's alright if you don't, but humans find the travelling much easier if they don't see the in-between places."

Arin clenched his eyes shut. This was going to be weird. And if this was anything like the Christmas Carol, he was going to be learning some sort of lesson from all of this. He wasn't sure how it was going to work. What did he have to learn from his past? From the future? Was he going to be shown a future where he gave up? Or took his own life? That would be... very uncool. He wasn't greedy or anything, too. He considered himself to be a decent person. He wasn't a perfect person, but he wasn't exactly a terrible person either. What was the point of all of this?

Well, he's just going to have to be along for the ride. And meanwhile, he's going to have to trust Jordan to know what they're doing.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this! this is going to be really interesting, so if you stick around, thank you so so much!
> 
> i'm @vinndetta on tumblr and on ko-fi (if you'd like to support a struggling college student, if so, thanks! <3)
> 
> thanks for reading! commenting/kudos make my day! have a great, great day everyone!


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